"It will be over in a minute or
two. Ecco il sole!"
I beheld no sun, either then or at any moment during the rest of the
day, but the voice was so reassuring that I gladly gave ear to it.
On we drove, down the lovely vale of the Corace, through
orange-groves and pine-woods, laurels and myrtles, carobs and olive
trees, with the rain beating fiercely upon us, the wind swaying all
the leafage like billows on a stormy sea. At the Marina of Catanzaro
we turned southward on the coast road, pursued it for two or three
miles, then branched upon our inland way. The storm showed no sign
of coming to an end. Several times the carriage stopped, and the lad
got down to examine his horses - perhaps to sympathize with them;
he was such a drenched, battered, pitiable object that I reproached
myself for allowing him to pursue the journey.
"Brutto tempo!" he screamed above the uproar, when I again spoke
to him; but in such a cheery tone that I did not think it worth
while to make any further remark.
Through the driving rain, I studied as well as I could the features
of the country. On my left hand stretched a long fiat-topped
mountain, forming the southern slope of the valley we ascended;
steep, dark, and furrowed with innumerable torrent-beds, it frowned
upon a river that rushed along the ravine at its foot to pour into
the sea where the mountain broke as a rugged cliff.
